Leda’s Urban Homestead

The past month I’ve been busy teaching foraging, writing about foraging, and, well, actually foraging for edible wild plants. I love it that I rarely have to actually buy a vegetable at this time of year because there are so many delicious ones ready to harvest for free.

I’ve also started sharing some brief tutorial videos about foraging, food preservation, and other urban homesteading skills on my youtube channel. Here are  my first three (be kind; the learning curve is steep!):

Japanese Knotweed: Eat the Invader

How to Make Violet Flower Syrup

How to Harvest Wild Ginger Sustainably

I’m going to be putting up more food preservation videos soon (in case you wished you could be peering over my shoulder while I test for that elusive jelly gelling point, etc.)…stay tuned (and thanks for putting up with this shamelessly self-promoting post!).

Busy, but yay! In all good ways. Hope you are having a glorious Spring.

The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget

Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

1. Never run out of onions or garlic. Too many recipes require them, and the local harvests of them are available in many places year-round. But if you don’t have any and it’s freezing outside, you might opt for the non-local version at the corner store. So stock up. Oh, and foragers take note: there’s field garlic out there right now even when there’s snow on the ground.

2. Prep a bunch of veggies right after you shop or pick up your CSA winter share:

Wash and spin dry the leafy greens. The best way I’ve found so far to store these is in green produce bags in the crisper drawers of the fridge. Peel and slice carrots and radishes to eat as snacks, with or without the dips I mention below. Store the prepped root veggie snacks in water in covered containers in the fridge.

3. Always Have Cooked Beans Available:

Every week or two, cook a pot of locally grown beans. Do this in the slow cooker overnight or while you’re out working. Make twice as many as you need and freeze the extras for when you really don’t have any time to cook. Make bean dip. Add them to soups. Make Mexican-style recipes. Basically everything you would do with beans out of a can except the local beans have much nicer textures. Plus protein, fiber and other good stuff even on the days you’re skipping the (expensive) pastured meat.

4. Have lots of different dried herbs and spices on hand. If you’re not a cook but more of an assembler, have a few seasoning blends such as herbes de Provence (for anything remotely Mediterranean-style) or curry powder.

5. Treat root veggies as your staple, and learn different ways to cook them. A potato is a potato is…but a mashed potato is different from one roasted, or fried, or steamed, or…often the cooking method changes the ingredient more than the seasoning.

6. If you are into food preservation, even just throwing some berries into the freezer, now is the time to use up what you put up last year.

If you’re in the NYC area and want to learn more ways to make a locavore diet in the Northeast yummy, doable, and affordable, come to this local food event the night of Monday, Feb. 11th. All the proceeds benefit Just Food.

P.S. - There’s a storm going on here in the Northeast in case you haven’t heard. Ella briefly considered going outside:

Yesterday I took a plane from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam, then one to JFK (where it felt very strange not to be going home from the airport to Brooklyn), and finally one here to San Francisco to visit my dad. Can you say jet lag?

The day before, while Ricky was working, I took Jessy for a walk in the woods

and bid farewell to the lush patches of mallow and white mustard I’ve been harvesting from, the pine ridge where I found the Suillus granulatus mushrooms, and the trails along which I learned some new-to-me edibles: milk thistle (Silybum marianum) -

I’d used the seeds as medicine but hadn’t tried the leaves as a salad green; navelwort (Umbilicus rupestris)

and Eryngium creticum, those last two introduced to me two days earlier by a new foraging buddy I met via FB.

It was a balmy morning, far too warm for the winter jacket I’d put on. Hard to believe that less than a week before we were romping in the snow.

There were several odds and ends of kitchen projects to wrap up:

The shelled and ground acorns that had been cold water leaching in the reservoir tank of one of the toilets for a week needed to be dried out and turned into flour. I didn’t have enough time left to make anything with the acorn flour, so it traveled with me to San Francisco. I feel bad because I think the tannins from the acorns permanently stained R’s toilet bowl with a dark brown stripe. I’ll spare you the visual.

There was the heap of firm baby cucumbers that we’d bought the day before at the souk. I followed through on my promise to turn them into refrigerator pickles.

I made lamb stew.

I checked the olives I’d foraged and started dry salt curing 5 weeks earlier and they weren’t quite ready yet. I packed them in some fresh salt.

I ran out of time before showing Ricky how to turn the eggplants (yes, they grow there even in January) into baba ganoush. Maybe I can do that via Skype video? Definitely not the same as in person, but maybe better than nothing.

And then it was time to go.

Ricky and Jessy

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Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

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Christmas Eve found me far from my Brooklyn stomping grounds. I’m in Jerusalem again, and yesterday evening Ricky and I had guests.

Cesar and his beautiful wife, Marina, are Russian. They are foragers and gardeners and make their own pickles, sausages, and other food preservation recipes. I’ve had the privilege of eating in their home, and so I knew that A) they’d be appreciative of homemade preserves and unusual ingredients in that way that only my foraging buddies and extreme foodie friends are, and B) I had to come up with something interesting.

I’d brought a jar of homemade jellied cranberry sauce with me from NY because you can’t really get cranberries here (except the juice,) and also because I thought I might be jonesing for a Christmas dinner.

So at my request, Ricky roasted turkey legs in the oven on a bed of salt, along with fennel bulb, carrots, and sweet peppers. I made mashed sweet potatoes with some of the maple syrup we bought in Massachusetts last year, a salad of steamed cardoons (an artichoke relative that we picked up at the market), tomatoes with herbs from the terrace garden, the olives I cured back in October, and refrigerator pickles.

Dessert was homemade lemon curd with store-bought gingersnap cookies. My dad and I came up with that combination - lemon curd plus gingersnaps - and it never fails to please. Homemade cookies would’ve been even better. Next time.

Christmas morning found me walking between pine trees and poking around in the pine needles. My hunt was rewarded with these darlings:

Suillus granulatus and S. luteus are bolete mushrooms that are good eating once you peel the slimy skins off their caps. They’re not the best for frying, but are delicious in soups, stews and such. Here’s what today’s haul looked like once I’d cleaned and trimmed them:

I also collected some olives, the last of this year’s crop. I’m going to preserve this batch with a dry salt cure.

Other Christmas day food projects include making stock from the bones of last night’s turkey legs, cooking chili con carne, and mulling wine.

I wish you a warm and wonderful Christmas!

The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget

Botany, Ballet, and Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

My boyfriend has a saying, “No brag, just fact.” Maybe that will get me out of sounding overly smug in this post.

It starts humbly. I got slammed with some kind of bug this week that had me either voiceless or sounding like Lauren Bacall on an off day. This week I was teaching and rehearsal directing, a.k.a. speaking at full voice nonstop for hours. Lousy time to lose my voice.

Last night I had to call in sick. I missed opening night of The Yorkville Nutcracker that I’ve been rehearsal directing since September. That sucked.

But since I was home, with time to cook, I hoped that something hot, something soupy, something spicy might blast through the sniffly nose and hoarse voice. I thought of the hot and sour soup I love at Chinese restaurants, and looked up a recipe.

Here’s where the brags, I mean facts, show up. Really I’m just pleased with myself for having a few unusual ingredients on hand and improvising my way around the ingredients I didn’t have.

The recipe called for wood ear mushrooms. Check - Jeremy showed me where to find those in Prospect Park a few months ago, and I dried a bunch.

It also called for lily buds - check. In this case, daylilies that I dried in early summer. Okay, actually I didn’t dry the buds because I don’t like the texture of the whole dried buds. I just dried the petals.

Instead of the optional chili pepper oil in the original recipe, I used the last of the recently harvested hot peppers from my garden. I picked them a couple of days ago, knowing that temps were going to dip down near freezing this week (and that meant the end of this year’s pepper plants).

I didn’t have the bamboo shoots called for, so I used some lightly steamed broccoli stems that I’d cut into a shape like the thin rectangles the bamboo shoots usually come in. I also didn’t have the pork tenderloin the recipe specified, but I did have homemade salt pork in the fridge, so I used a little of that.

It was good. And, as is the way with soups, the leftovers were even better for lunch today. And I am feeling much better (no brag, just fact).

Here is the original recipe from a colleague at About.com. It’s really good and very forgiving of substitutions, as my experiment with it illustrates. For my tastes, it needed more vinegar, so I added a splash extra. I will make this again.

Food Preservation

The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget

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Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

I’m almost done putting the garden to bed for the year. The hostas and raspberry canes still need to be cut back, and I haven’t done the final mulching yet. But the rain barrel is already emptied and turned upside down (to protect it from cracking, which could happen if it sat full of freezing and thawing water all winter). The container plants that will overwinter indoors are in. The tomato vine remnants are history.

As I’m finishing up with this year’s garden, I take mental notes on what did and didn’t work this year, and what I want to try next year. One thing that I want to do is be more pro-active in heading off the infestations that plagued my garden this year (spider mite on the tomatoes, aphids on the roses). I think I’m going to order some ladybugs to release next spring…

Here is a guest post by Bryan Baker  to help with planning organic methods to control pests next year:

Going Organic with Organic Pest Control

By Bryan Baker

Backyard gardens are a place to cultivate something of your own and create an environment for some of the purest and freshest flowers and food. Doing so organically adds another layer of achievement: you’ll see it in the expressions of those who have the privilege of eating your tomatoes or smelling your roses.

So how can we create a truly natural environment, while keeping those detrimental critters from fouling our benefits? Lets start by identifying some of the top culprits:

1. Aphids are a very large group of insects that suck the sap out of the vessels of your your plants. In turn, leaves will drop and the plant becomes susceptible to disease.

1. Caterpillars are probably the most obvious because they eat the leaves and sometimes even burrow into fruits and vegetables.

1. Cutworms will devour a plant at the stem and as a result, possibly cut the plant down (hence the name).

1. Flea beetles can attack a plant two ways: The adults feed on the leaves, while the larvae attack the roots.

1. Tarnished plant bugs feed on the early developing plants, fruits and vegetables. This can effect future growth.

We know that these critters are harmful to our gardens. Now what are some options that can be taken to prevent and/or control them?

1. Floating row covers offer your garden protection while allowing the growing plants to push it up. These are not the most attractive additions to one’s garden, but may be necessary. Not only will they offer protection from insects, but they shield the garden from rabbits, deer and birds. Some floating row covers are supported by simple frames, while others are laid directly on top of the garden. They all allow sunlight, air and water to penetrate.

2. Encourage native predators in your garden such as ladybugs, lacewings, and beneficial nematodes. You can purchase these online and insert them into your garden. Ladybugs can consume 50 to 60 aphids a day. Furthermore, beneficial nematodes will kill soil dwelling insects. This can be a very fun project for children as they get to learn about some pretty bugs, while doing your garden a favor.

3. Just plain handpicking the cutworms and caterpillars. There is nothing less glamorous than this, but it’s effective. Most gardeners check their garden daily anyway, so while you do that feel free to handpick those critters out of there.

With these options, you have done nothing to tarnish the organic nature of your garden. Try these steps before resorting to spraying your garden with synthetic chemical mixtures. I think you will be pleased with the results.

Bryan Baker works with Moxie Pest Control, which offers unique organic pest control services. He also spends time gardening with his family.

While I was away camping out at the Red Sea,

cavorting with dolphins in Eilat,

and contemplating the uses of the spices sold in East Jerusalem,

back home in NYC Superstorm Sandy was uprooting trees, severing power lines, and flooding the subways.

My neighborhood, Park Slope, was mostly spared Sandy’s rampage. The power never went out here. But I have friends in other areas whose homes are damaged, and a few who are still without heat or electric power a week after the storm.

Even Park Slope is feeling the impact. There is one gas station open two blocks away from me. Round the clock, there are people standing in line with red gasoline containers hoping the station gets another delivery so that they can power generators back up or drive to work tomorrow.

Last year was Hurricane Irene, the year before a tornado that trashed the north end of Prospect Park and felled a massive Ailanthus tree that crashed the fences of three adjacent back yards next to me. And now Sandy.

I don’t think it’s too much to say that these represent a new weather situation where I live. Call it climate change, global warming, whatever label floats your boat. I expect that “superstorms” are now to be expected at this time of year in this part of the world.

In some ways, I guess I’m more prepared than most. I know how to forage for wild edible plants and mushrooms. My one-bedroom apartment is stuffed with the bounty of locally grown food that I preserve. So I’ve got a kind of food security going.

But I couldn’t post this blog, Skype my long-distance boyfriend, write my foraging column, publish my food preservation recipes, or call my mom and dad without juice. Electrical juice, the kind that Sandy so easily wiped out for millions of people.

I’m staring at my solar phone charger right now. So okay, cool, I can charge my phone even if the wall outlets aren’t giving me zip. But if my phone company doesn’t have power, then what good does that do me?

Saw this on my local hardware store window today:

Sandy has highlighted how utterly cheap-oil-economy, electrical power and info-tech grid dependent I am.

Well, if the grid seriously crashes, at least food won’t be an immediate concern for me.

Meanwhile, in the can’t-hurt-might-help category, get out there and vote tomorrow if you haven’t already, okay? Choose the candidate you think might give a damn about climate change and renewable energy sources.

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a homely, lumpy-looking fruit with a fabulous taste and texture that seem absolutely tropical. But although they taste tropical, pawpaws are actually native to North America.

If you’re eager to taste pawpaw but missed the foraging season for it, you can order some from Integration Acres.

Some years the wild pawpaw crop is bountiful, other years it is scant. Alas, it was the latter in my usual pawpaw stomping grounds.

But apparently it was bountiful elsewhere, because I scored a couple of fruits at an NYC event this week. The event was part of the Lopate & Locavore series, and I got to meet up with foraging buddies Ellen and Janice there (thank you, Janice, for the tix!).

As part of the event, forager Tama Matsuoka Wong was selling and signing copies of her new book, Foraged Flavor. And if you got a copy of this very interesting book, you also got to take home some fresh pawpaws. Score!

Pawpaws seeds are big, but there aren’t too many of them and they are easy to remove. After scooping the pulp out of the skins with a spoon and removing the seeds, I nibbled some of the delicious pulp fresh. But I turned most of it into a custard that will be breakfast for the next several days.

(Okay, only for two days because I already ate one of the ramekins of custard for a snack today. Hey, I had to make sure it was good before I posted the recipe, right?)

Here’s the recipe:

Pawpaw Custard

Serves 3

1 cup pawpaw pulp (skins and seeds removed)

1 cup milk or half and half (I used milk because that’s what I had, but half and half would be really, really good)

2 eggs

2 tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Puree all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor (I used an immersion blender because of the easier clean up).

Pour the mixture into 1 cup ramekins leaving 1/2 inch between the top of the food and the rim of the ramekin (the custard will puff up as it cooks).

Place the ramekins on a baking dish. Pour enough water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 40-60 minutes until the custard has set in the center but is still a little jiggly.

Let cool completely before covering with plastic wrap and transferring to the refrigerator. To serve, drizzle a little extra honey on top, or…

I had a little extra pawpaw pulp leftover, so I put a couple of spoonfuls of that on top of the pawpaw custard. Yum.

Next foraging tour and feast this Sunday!

Leda’s Food Preservation info

The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget

Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

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I participate in food porn: I photograph or describe my so-good dinner; I enviously “like” your similar postings on your blog or FB or Twitter. I promise to post my recipe for Sizzling Solanum Salsa because in the comments so many people asked for it (Now you’re wondering what Solanum I’m talking about, right? Stay tuned…)

And honestly, all that is really fun.

But tonight I had some tiny, baby new potatoes from the farmers market to do something with. What I found myself remembering was a meal I had over a decade ago in Holland.

I was finishing up 5 weeks of working in Rotterdam with two very close friends and colleagues I’d originally met in NYC. One of the people who’d been involved in the project we’d been working on was a sparrow-tiny woman named Ceclia. Or maybe it was Cecile (I remember her meal better than her name. Does that make me a bad person? Sigh).

The food was so simple and so good. It fulfilled every cliche about how if the ingredients are good enough they don’t need fancy sauces or cooking methods.

What I remember most are her potatoes. They were just boiled in their skins. She didn’t salt them but rather served the salt on the side. We ate them with our fingers, sprinkling the salt between bites. Not every potato is good enough to eat that way. Those potatoes were. No butter, no sour cream  - and I remember them 12 years later.

Does that mean that C.’s simple way of cooking was better than the decadent layers of ingredients and cooking methods I’ve been ogling and creating? No.

It means that food is complicated, even when it is simple.

It engages all five of our physical senses (aw, c’mon, tell me cooking bacon isn’t auditory, never mind popcorn).

It is laden with personal and cultural history.

It impacts the environment and our personal and communal economies.

It requires skills, or friends with skills (If C. had undercooked those simple potatoes, if she had overcooked them, would I still remember them as the benchmark of potato perfection?).

This past week, for the first time in over a decade, I achieved something that tasted like my memory of C.’s potatoes. I just boiled the small potatoes whole, drained them, and sprinkled them with salt.

But okay, they were a special variety called Adirondack Red that is beautifully pink all the way through, and…pics soon, promise.

So is there a conflict between “food porn” and simple food? I don’t think so. Just look at those raspberries…

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The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget

Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes

This is the first time since I started this blog 5 years ago that I’m asking you to support something. If you are pro sustainable food, pro urban agriculture, pro small farm, then read on.

Over the past 5 years Meg Paska has worked for me as gardening crew and at the New York Botanical Garden as an instructor teaching vegetable gardening, beekeeping, and more.

She also happens to be a first rate chicken raiser (I’ve got eggs from her Brooklyn chickens in my fridge right now).

Meg is starting a farm, and the idea is that it’s close enough to NYC that we can all visit, do retreats there, etc. And she needs our help to get it going.

Meg’s kickstarter campaign offers options starting at $1. Give more than that if you can. If you can’t do cash, offer time on the farm. I totally trust Meg to make this fly, but she does need our help to get airborne.